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Who’s Here? RFID for Hybrid Workplace Safety

Who’s Here? RFID for Hybrid Workplace Safety

We don’t like to think about it much, but workplace safety is just as important to a company’s strength as fiscal soundness or modern operating equipment. Prudent business managers have a disaster management plan that includes employee safety: evacuation routes and responsibilities, mustering locations, and safety alerts and communications.

The hybrid workplace, however, has thrown a monkey wrench into the orderly emergency-management process.

  • How do managers maintain an accurate headcount of occupants when people come and go on independent schedules?
  • Who is in charge of evacuations if the designated emergency captain is working remotely?
  • How are employees’ emergency contacts found when the HR department is working from home?

Risks increase whenever accurate information decreases. This is true in any aspect of business. And any wise business manager knows that employees, like any other business asset, can be protected by the application of good information.

RFID is an information technology that your business may already be using to manage inventory and locate assets like equipment and documents. RFID excels at answering the questions of What, Where, and How Many. It is fast and accurate, and a proven productivity and asset management tool.

In some industries, particularly manufacturing, mining, and chemical processing, RFID is already in use to track personnel as well as products and equipment. Some industries use RFID in process management, tracking parts and products through the manufacturing process, and tracking workers to determine efficient and safe process paths.

With the advent of hybrid workplaces, office managers are extending their RFID capabilities into emergency management. Paired with doorway readers, RFID-enabled personnel badges or wearables keep a tally of who’s in the office, and where they are working – particularly useful in hot-desking workplaces. RFID tags can contain vital health information such as allergies, medical conditions, and emergency contacts, without compromising privacy.

Every gain in speedy, accurate information delivery represents a reduction in risk, not just for a business’s productivity, but for its personnel too. Employees are a company’s greatest asset. Doesn’t it make sense to protect them with the reliable information technology of RFID?

 

Photo © PixelShot / AdobeStock

Who Moved My Cheese? RFID Has the Answer

Who Moved My Cheese? RFID Has the Answer

In every office, things get moved around. Documents, laptops, chairs, people – the movement is often unexpected, often unrecorded, and very often inconvenient or even dangerous. Locating a missing legal document in an office, or a specific doctor in a large hospital, can mean the difference between a good outcome and a very bad one.

A compilation of studies from IndustryAnalysts.com revealed the statistics and costs associated with documents that have moved from their assigned location. Some key findings:

  • Companies on average spend $120 in labor to find one misfiled document.
  • 400 is the number of hours per year the average employee spends searching for documents.
  • One out of every 20 documents is lost.
  • Approximately 25 hours are spent recreating each lost document.
  • 90% of a business’s information is in documents.

Add to this the cost of furnishings and equipment that have somehow migrated elsewhere, or key personnel who are needed at a moment’s notice. The inability to quickly locate assets translates into significant dollar sums.

RFID (radio frequency identification) offers a simple solution: a combination of RFID readers and small, inconspicuous RFID tags. RFID tags communicate with RFID readers via radio waves, as the name implies. When an RFID system’s readers are affixed in doorways or other transition points, anything with a system-specific RFID tag is recorded as it moves through the doorway.

An example: Document X is given an RFID tag programed with identifying information about the document. If Document X leaves its filing cabinet in Room A and moves to a copier in Room B, then moves to Office C for a signature, those movements are tracked by the RFID readers in the doorways of Room A, Room B, and Office C. And when someone is looking for Document X, a quick glance at the RFID log will show the document’s latest location. It’s like a trail of bread crumbs that leads directly to the missing cheese.

And RFID isn’t just for documents. Tags can be applied to furnishings, file folders, artwork, personnel ID’s, practically anything and anyone whose location is essential to know. RFID’s asset management information enhances operational productivity and security top to bottom, throughout an enterprise.

Can your business benefit from an RFID system? If you have documents, furniture, equipment, inventory, or staff, the answer is, “Yes!”

 

Photo © gstockstudio / AdobeStock

*“Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson, 1998